It is known in the art to provide a self-contained evaporative personal cooling apparatus that can be hand-held or, for instance, hung about a user's waist or neck. Such apparatuses comprise a water mister and a blower and often provide a two-stage cooling effect. In the first stage, flash evaporation of a finely divided water mist cools that air before it is blown over the skin, while in the second the air flow that carries moisture to the skin also increases the rate of evaporation of this moisture from the skin, for a wind chill effect.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,371,388 describes a misting blower, secured about the waist of the user, in which a fine spray of water is provided adjacent to the blower's exhaust nozzle, such that the air and water spray mixing and cooling primarily takes place outside the nozzle outlet. However, where the outlet of such apparatuses may be placed closer to the user's face, for example, it would be advantageous that doing so would not compromise the cooling performance or create discomfort for the user.
Moreover, in compact self-contained devices such as these, the fan is typically mounted directly on the output shaft of an electric motor, or gear motor, resulting in heat lost by the motor causing sensible heating of the air stream, before the air stream is subsequently humidified and cooled.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome or substantially ameliorate the above disadvantages or, more generally, to provide an improved personal evaporative cooling apparatus.